It certainly wasn’t in the stars against Canadiens
Blame Jack Johnson and Justin Schultz all you want. They deserve it. Blame Jared McCann, Patrick Marleau and Zach Aston-Reese. They deserve it, too. Even blame Mike Sullivan, the best coach in Penguins history after Scotty Bowman. He had no answers for Montreal coach Claude Julien in his team’s embarrassing collapse last week.
But me?
I’m blaming the stars, who were anything but stars.
But it gets worse.
Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin,
Kris Letang, Jake Guentzel and Matt Murray haven’t been postseason stars for a long time.
You have to go back to May 3, 2018, when the Penguins beat the Washington Capitals, 3-1, to even their second-round playoff series at two games apiece. Malkin scored the
game-winner, Guentzel had two goals, Crosby chipped in with two assists and Murray made 20 saves. The Penguins’ chances for a third consecutive Stanley Cup seemed realistic.
At least until Game 5. The Penguins lost that night, 6-3, then were eliminated by the Capitals when they lost Game 6, 2-1, on home ice in overtime. They were swept by the New York Islanders in the 2019 playoffs, losing the four games by a combined score of 14-6. They just lost three of four to the woeful Canadiens — the 24th seed in the 24-team, COVID-19 impacted playoffs — in the franchise’s most humiliating postseason exit.
Allow me to add up the numbers for you:
The Penguins have lost three consecutive series and are 1-9 in their past 10 playoff games.
Cup contenders?
How about Cup pretenders?
I blame the stars.
Crosby
He wasn’t terrible against the Canadiens and might not have been completely healthy after missing 28 games in the regular season with a sportshernia injury that required surgery and then missing most of training camp 2.0 with an undisclosed issue. Nonetheless, he wasn’t the Superman who led the team to three Cups. He had two goals and an assist against the Canadiens, which doesn’t seem bad. But in that 1-9 slide? He had four goals and three assists and was a minus-6. He had averaged 1.16 points per postseason game before those 10 games.
Hard-to-believe fact No. 1: Crosby has just one powerplay goal in his past 28 playoff games.
Malkin
He managed just one assist in the four games against the Canadiens despite putting 21 shots on goaltender Carey Price. He was just as unproductive in the past 10 games as a whole, a minus-8 with one goal and four assists. He had averaged 1.05 points per postseason game before those 10 games.
Hard-to-believe fact No. 2: Malkin has gone 16 playoff games in a row without an even-strength goal.
Letang
He didn’t have a point against the Canadiens and just one goal and one assist in the games against the Capitals and Islanders. He was a minus-7 in those 10 games.
Hard-to-believe fact No. 3: Letang has gone 66 consecutive postseason games without a power-play goal.
Guentzel
He had a goal and two assists against the Canadiens and gets a bit of a pass because he was playing in his first games since his serious shoulder injury Dec. 30. But he didn’t do much in the two losses to the Capitals and the four against the Islanders with a combined one goal and one assist. He had 23 goals and 19 assists in 35 postseason games before the past 10.
Murray
He won Game 2 against the Canadiens, 3-1, with 26 saves but was bad enough in the 4-3 loss in Game 3 to be benched for Tristan Jarry in Game 4. In his past nine postseason starts, he went 1-8 and allowed at least three goals in six of the games, a total of 26. His fine play in the team’s Cup runs in 2016 and 2017 seems like ancient history.
Stars?
I don’t think so. Malkin turned 34 on July 31. Crosby had a miserable 33rd birthday on Friday. Letang also is 33. It’s easy to believe they won’t return to the level they once achieved.
Sullivan didn’t want to go there, of course, Friday night after the Penguins had been eliminated.
“I think these guys are still elite players. I believe in this core. I just think they are such character guys,” he said. “They’re elite hockey player and I still think there’s elite play left in them.”
Sullivan had especially high praise for Crosby
“I can’t say enough about him,” he said. “He’s just such a tremendous athlete. I have the privilege of watching him every day, up close and personal. He’s such a motivated player. I’ve never been around a player as motivated and driven as he is. I don’t know that I can find the words to articulate how I really feel about him. I just have that much respect for him.”
All of us share that respect for Crosby. All of us have had the privilege of watching his magic with Malkin and Letang. Who could have dreamed of three Cups? We’ve been lucky, almost beyond belief.
All I’m saying is it used to be more fun.
A lot more fun.